US Muslim Jailed, Tortured in Abu Dhabi as Part of FBI Tactics
A new report has revealed that the FBI requested the detention and torture of an American Muslim in Abu Dhabi as part of the harsh US tactics over the past two years against Muslim-Americans traveling overseas.
The Council on American-Islamic Relations, a US advocacy group, says several instances of FBI’s aggressive tactics against Muslim-American travelers are aimed at pressuring them to serve as informants when they return home.
"It was very hard, because you don't know why you are in there and the only person you speak to is either yourself, or the wall, or when you go to the restroom or when you go to the torture place," 33-year-old Yonas Fikre, who was detained in Abu Dhabi in June 2011 and held for 106 days, told a Wednesday press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
"I have never been that isolated from human beings in my entire life," he added.
Plain-clothes officers pulled Fikre out of his place of residence in Abu Dhabi on June 1, 2011, and took him into custody.
The captors interrogated Fikre about Portland's largest mosque, Masjid as-Sabr, where he used to attend for worship after he embraced Islam in 2003.
Fikre is the third Muslim man from Portland to publicly reveal that he was apprehended by the FBI while traveling abroad and questioned about the mosque.
He was released on September 14 and applied for asylum in Sweden. His attorney and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have demanded an investigation into the matter by the US Justice Department.
When Fikre was released, he had lost nearly 30 pounds.
He says when the US embassy representative visited him in jail on July 28, he was warned by his interrogators not to mention the tortures, or "hell would break loose."
The FBI has refused to provide any comments other than saying its agents follow the law.
Source: Press TV
"It was very hard, because you don't know why you are in there and the only person you speak to is either yourself, or the wall, or when you go to the restroom or when you go to the torture place," 33-year-old Yonas Fikre, who was detained in Abu Dhabi in June 2011 and held for 106 days, told a Wednesday press conference in Stockholm, Sweden.
"I have never been that isolated from human beings in my entire life," he added.
Plain-clothes officers pulled Fikre out of his place of residence in Abu Dhabi on June 1, 2011, and took him into custody.
The captors interrogated Fikre about Portland's largest mosque, Masjid as-Sabr, where he used to attend for worship after he embraced Islam in 2003.
Fikre is the third Muslim man from Portland to publicly reveal that he was apprehended by the FBI while traveling abroad and questioned about the mosque.
He was released on September 14 and applied for asylum in Sweden. His attorney and the Council on American-Islamic Relations have demanded an investigation into the matter by the US Justice Department.
When Fikre was released, he had lost nearly 30 pounds.
He says when the US embassy representative visited him in jail on July 28, he was warned by his interrogators not to mention the tortures, or "hell would break loose."
The FBI has refused to provide any comments other than saying its agents follow the law.
Source: Press TV
